WI: McVeigh escapes after OKC

[Asp]

So IOTL McVeigh was caught for two reasons. First, he was driving without license plates, which led to a cop pulling him over and then noticing he had an unlicensed concealed weapon. Despite a popularly repeated misconception, the plates weren't knocked off in the blast. When McVeigh stashed his getaway car he left a note on the dash covering the Vehicle Identification Number that said, "Not abandoned. Please do not tow. Will move by April 23. (Needs battery & cable)." Then he removed the plates so that no one would be able to note the numbers in the meanwhile. It looks like in the adrenaline of everything he forgot to reattach them. The second thing he did wrong was use his real name at the hotel (he had been using fake ones before). The lady at the hotel who signed him in, Lea McGown, said later, per wiki, "People are so used to signing their own name that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use. That's what [McVeigh] did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him." The FBI was able to find the rear axle of the Ryder truck two blocks from ground zero and traced the serial number to a certain rental dealership, then followed the trail to the hotel where McVeigh was registered under his real name, they ran his SSN and found out he was sitting in the OKC courthouse in a holding cell waiting to be arraigned for the weapons charge and for driving without plates. The rest, as they say, is history.

So the POD is that Lea McGown doesn't say anything and McVeigh puts down his alias, which leads to some subtle mental butterfly in his train of thought that makes him remember to screw the plates back on before he gets driving. He gets away clean. What happens? There wasn't really anything else that could tie him to the bombing, so if he just never did anything criminal again it would probably go unsolved forever, like the Zodiac Killer case or the Golden State Killer one looked like it would be until a month ago. IMHO, the cloud of suspicion over Middle Eastern people that briefly took over would dissipate because it was pretty obvious from the beginning who in general had done it. The bombing was on the anniversary of Waco and neo-nazi/militia types were strong in the area and had targeted the building before. It was either them or drug traffickers, because the Alfred P. Murrah building was nexus for most federal law agencies in the area, but they generally don't do that kind of thing. Where it goes from there is anyone's guess.

McVeigh probably doesn't stop there, though. He and Nichols were very committed and they still had a ton of bomb-making materials and they probably would have had their egos fed by the success of this.

So what happens?

 

[Kevin Renner]

Eventually the feds get a break. The big problem is people simply cannot keep their mouths shut. Word or at least speculation will get around in the commuity that McVey and Nichols lived in. Eventually someone will talk. There are two words that simply do not go together. Criminal and Mastermind.

 

[Derek Jackson]

Would he have tried something else? Would Moslems have been blamed?

 

[Asp]

Eventually the feds get a break. The big problem is people simply cannot keep their mouths shut. Word or at least speculation will get around in the commuity that McVey and Nichols lived in. Eventually someone will talk. There are two words that simply do not go together. Criminal and Mastermind.

They did a pretty airtight job of covering their tracks and they weren't common thugs, they were disciplined combat veterans who knew how to plan. I don't actually think it was inevitable.

Would he have tried something else? Would Moslems have been blamed?

No, as said in the post there were really obvious reasons to believe it was far-right extremists.

 

[overoceans]

No, as said in the post there were really obvious reasons to believe it was far-right extremists.

Well, obvious to people who aren't looking for a reason to demonize Muslims and/or exonerate the militia movement. But of course there are quite a few Americans who ARE, in fact, looking for an excuse to do one or both of those things.

I think there'd be a lot of conspiracy-theorizing about it being Muslims, and the government covered it up for reasons of "political correctness" or "attacking the white race" or whatever(depending on the particlar brand of right-wing lunacy the various theorists held to). Mind you, there'd also be a lot of people in those circles thinking it was the ZOG or the UN black helicopters.

And all the conspiracy-mongering would get redoubled after 9-11. "See!! The government covered up the Muslim attack in '95, and then the Muslims came back and did it again in 2001, only with thousands dead this time!!"

 

[Driftless]

If McVeigh escapes, but is identified as a "person of interest", it's going to be hard for him to hide for long - even with help from the wingnuts on the miltia front. There will be a very public manhunt, heavily featuring pictures of the murdered children from the day care center.

 

[Gentleman Biaggi]

Would he have tried something else? Would Moslems have been blamed?

Actually, shortly after the attack, most people were actually blaming Muslims (one newscaster said it was “similar to terror we usually see in the Middle East” or some shit like that), so it’s conceivable that if McVeigh escapes, people will blame Muslims, at least until someone talks and McVeigh’s caught.

 

[creighton]

It would take longer to find and identify him, but isn't there security camera footage of him renting the Ryder truck? For some reason in my head I have this grainy security camera footage of him walking through a glass door the morning of the bombing, but I could be conflating this. If it does exist, then you'd be able to attach his image to the truck, and it would just be a matter of time to until they'd get a tip from someone that knew him and his views on government. Once that happens, you'd be be able to start looking at his bomb making material purchases with Terry Nichols.

 

[Dilvish]

I do remember the early blame the Muslims stuff. Having the truck bombing be the work of a Muslim terrorist group did have some logic to it. On the plus side, the Internet wasn't what it was, so the anti-Muslim bandwagon moved slower in those days. The FBI does have the rear axle that they trace to the rental company. That still gives them an idea of who the bomber is. McVeigh and Nichols will be going for other targets. Will they try to use rental vehicles again? There will be increased scrutiny of rental trucks. I remember giving an extra look-see to big rental trucks back then.

 

[Asp]

*snip*

*snip*

I just don’t see the Islamic terrorists theory holding up for very long because the FBI will eventually find the rental place and hotel and everyone’s descriptions will say it was a white, clearly American male. In between that and the other reasons to believe it was the far right, I think that will become the going theory very quickly.

What do you think McVeigh does after he gets away?

 

[M79]

I doubt he goes for long without trying to plan or worse execute a follow-up attack in a similar-sized city. The problem becomes the potential for an attack anywhere in middle America which is normally isolated from such things by geography if nothing else. I think he gets caught only if he bungles, more likely he would be killed with another Waco-style shootout if someone hides him or gets enough weapons together to make himself a very public martyr.

 

[thekingsguard]

Depends - does he go into hiding and keep a low profile, or does he get emboldened and try another target?

The former, he very well could get away, if he plays it smart. I mean, serial killers often are active for decades, and he was way more preped than most serial killers.

The latter I think is far more likely. Question is... what target to they go for?

 

[Roches]

What if an armed white nationalist group harbored McVeigh? He was motivated by Ruby Ridge and Waco, and he could have easily triggered a similar standoff. He would just have to immediately drive to whatever remote corner of an underpopulated state his chosen group lived in. It's conceivable that a leader of a white nationalist/neo-Nazi group could declare unilaterally that McVeigh was to be protected. The question, then, is whether or not that leader's followers were willing to participate in a shooting war with the ATF and FBI. Perhaps there were neo-Nazi groups quite crazy enough. If there were, it's an easy step to that group defending their compound to the death with automatic weapons. It would be a Jonestown style "revolutionary suicide", with the victims sincerely believing their deaths would trigger a Turner Diaries style civil war.

 

[overoceans]

I just don’t see the Islamic terrorists theory holding up for very long because the FBI will eventually find the rental place and hotel and everyone’s descriptions will say it was a white, clearly American male. In between that and the other reasons to believe it was the far right, I think that will become the going theory very quickly.

Yes, it'll become the going theory among the evidence-based majority of people. But considering how long Birtherism went on after Obama's Honolulu Advertiser birth-announcement went viral in 2008, I don't think we should underestimate the potential of true-believers to doubt the obvious.

And FWIW, the percentage of people believing that OKC was carried out by Muslims would probably be roughly equal to the percentage who thought Obama was born in Kenya. Possibly a bit fewer, since for some of those people "cops don't lie" would overrule "the politically correct elite are covering up for their Muslim buddies" in their decision about who to believe.

 

[M79]

Yes, it'll become the going theory among the evidence-based majority of people. But considering how long Birtherism went on after Obama's Honolulu Advertiser birth-announcement went viral in 2008, I don't think we should underestimate the potential of true-believers to doubt the obvious.

And FWIW, the percentage of people believing that OKC was carried out by Muslims would probably be roughly equal to the percentage who thought Obama was born in Kenya. Possibly a bit fewer, since for some of those people "cops don't lie" would overrule "the politically correct elite are covering up for their Muslim buddies" in their decision about who to believe.

You mean British East Africa, right?

 

[thatsbunkers]

What if an armed white nationalist group harbored McVeigh? He was motivated by Ruby Ridge and Waco, and he could have easily triggered a similar standoff. He would just have to immediately drive to whatever remote corner of an underpopulated state his chosen group lived in. It's conceivable that a leader of a white nationalist/neo-Nazi group could declare unilaterally that McVeigh was to be protected. The question, then, is whether or not that leader's followers were willing to participate in a shooting war with the ATF and FBI. Perhaps there were neo-Nazi groups quite crazy enough. If there were, it's an easy step to that group defending their compound to the death with automatic weapons. It would be a Jonestown style "revolutionary suicide", with the victims sincerely believing their deaths would trigger a Turner Diaries style civil war.

Apparently, at least according to Ted Kaczynski (take that as you will), he wasn't really motivated by racism but just extreme anti authoritarianism

McVeigh is considered to belong to the far right, and for that reason some people apparently assume that he has racist tendencies. But I saw no indication of this. On the contrary, he was on very friendly terms with the African-American inmates here and I never heard him make any remark that could have been considered even remotely racist. I do recall his mentioning that prior to the Gulf War, he and other soldiers were subjected to propaganda designed to make them hate the people they were going to fight, but when he arrived in the Persian Gulf area he discovered that the "enemies" he was supposed to kill were human beings just like himself, and he learned to respect their culture.

McVeigh told me of his idea (which I think may have significant merit) that certain rebellious elements on the American right and left respectively had more in common with one another than is commonly realized, and that the two groups ought to join forces. This led us to discuss, though only briefly, the question of what constitutes the "right." I pointed out that the word "right," in the political sense, was originally associated with authoritarianism, and I raised the question of why certain radically anti-authoritarian groups (such as the Montana Freemen) were lumped together with authoritarian factions as the "right." McVeigh explained that the American far right could be roughly divided into two branches, the fascist/racist branch, and the individualistic or freedom-loving branch which generally was not racist. He did not know why these two branches were lumped together as the "right," but he did suggest a criterion that could be used to distinguish left from right: the left (in America today) generally dislikes firearms, while the right tends to be attracted to firearms.

 

[Carl Schwamberger]

...
And FWIW, the percentage of people believing that OKC was carried out by Muslims would probably be roughly equal to the percentage who thought Obama was born in Kenya. Possibly a bit fewer, since for some of those people "cops don't lie" would overrule "the politically correct elite are covering up for their Muslim buddies" in their decision about who to believe.

The other group that will gain traction is 'The Government Did It' crowd. I know one or two of those & when the stop talking about 911 as a 'guvmint did it' one of their alternate rants is the OKC as a Fed crime.

 

[Theoretical_TJ]

Something to consider is that they likely would have been smart enough to try something very different like blowing a bridge or one of the very vulnerable dams, especially if it was a well known federal project.

Like imagine blowing a TWA dam.

It could have gotten very ugly, and they could have had quite a rampage before getting caught.

 

[Asp]

Depends - does he go into hiding and keep a low profile, or does he get emboldened and try another target?

The former, he very well could get away, if he plays it smart. I mean, serial killers often are active for decades, and he was way more preped than most serial killers.

The latter I think is far more likely. Question is... what target to they go for?

I think going for another LEO office is pretty likely. There was another target they looked at, a 40 story one in Little Rock that had a ton of three letter agencies but they ruled it out because there was a florist shop on the ground floor and they didn’t want too many non-feds to die. However, McVeigh knowingly or unknowingly killed a ton of kids because there was that daycare in the Murray building. He was able to rationalize it after the fact by saying it was no different than the civilians who got killed in the Gulf. That raises a disquieting possibility: if OKC inured him to killing civilians after maybe an initial shock, he would probably give that one in Arkansas another look. Forty stories...that could be very bad.

What if an armed white nationalist group harbored McVeigh? He was motivated by Ruby Ridge and Waco, and he could have easily triggered a similar standoff. He would just have to immediately drive to whatever remote corner of an underpopulated state his chosen group lived in. It's conceivable that a leader of a white nationalist/neo-Nazi group could declare unilaterally that McVeigh was to be protected. The question, then, is whether or not that leader's followers were willing to participate in a shooting war with the ATF and FBI. Perhaps there were neo-Nazi groups quite crazy enough. If there were, it's an easy step to that group defending their compound to the death with automatic weapons. It would be a Jonestown style "revolutionary suicide", with the victims sincerely believing their deaths would trigger a Turner Diaries style civil war.

McVeigh and Nichols succeeded because they were smarter than that. Both of them seemed to understand that those groups weren’t really keen on going to war with the feds and were thoroughly infiltrated and incompetent anyway. Keeping it to three people (McVeigh, Nichols, and his wife) was a very smart move. I don’t see them bringing more people into the conspiracy, though it could embolden some outside groups.

 

[Asp]

Yes, it'll become the going theory among the evidence-based majority of people. But considering how long Birtherism went on after Obama's Honolulu Advertiser birth-announcement went viral in 2008, I don't think we should underestimate the potential of true-believers to doubt the obvious.

And FWIW, the percentage of people believing that OKC was carried out by Muslims would probably be roughly equal to the percentage who thought Obama was born in Kenya. Possibly a bit fewer, since for some of those people "cops don't lie" would overrule "the politically correct elite are covering up for their Muslim buddies" in their decision about who to believe.

The other group that will gain traction is 'The Government Did It' crowd. I know one or two of those & when the stop talking about 911 as a 'guvmint did it' one of their alternate rants is the OKC as a Fed crime.

American politics was a lot saner and less unmoored in the 90s than it is today and no social media or internet to spread this garbage is really helpful.

Something to consider is that they likely would have been smart enough to try something very different like blowing a bridge or one of the very vulnerable dams, especially if it was a well known federal project.

Like imagine blowing a TWA dam.

It could have gotten very ugly, and they could have had quite a rampage before getting caught.

McVeigh and Nichols weren’t that kind of terrorist. They weren’t like ISIS in that randomly killing as many as they could wasn’t their goal. They had a specific ideology that identified “overreaching domestic government” as the big baddies, and they were dedicated to attacking targets and personnel related to that. They felt that killing civilians was something regrettable but inevitable, same as in war, but it wasn’t something they were intentionally trying to do. Blowing up infrastructure and killings tens or hundreds of thousands of American citizens isn’t something they go for.